I know, I know, I’ve been endlessly blabbing on and on about the book, but A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS is a real thing now. Crazy, yeah? Yes. It is. Today I’m feeling thankful and incredibly, obnoxiously lucky to have so many amazing friends and loved ones and talented cohorts who’ve helped and supported me, even when I didn’t/don’t deserve it.

Last night the wonderful Brookline Booksmith hosted a reading/discussion with my good friend, the brilliant and sometimes angry Jack Haringa as interviewer/James Lipton.

Make with the pictures, already, and some poignant funny descriptive words!

Jack’s kind intro and fun questions. I only got 9 and 10 correct.

Here’s a goofy pic of me listening to the intro. Maybe thinking about food when Jack said “tantalizing”

Next up, a couple of pictures of the discussion. We were such happy discussers! I hold the mic with my left hand apparently. Who knew?

After the event a mob posse gaggle gathering group of revelers friends and family when down the street to the Fireplace and ate tantalizing appetizers. I personally completed a meat Olympiad: salmon, short rib, lamb, slider burger, chicken wing(s). You’ll notice my brother’s large head in one shot. If you look closely you’ll see my sister and her husband Steve; their house was the model/setting for the house in AHFoG. I thank them for letting me make their cute house creepy.

One final picture and a warning. This is my copy of A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS. If I get the opportunity to sign your book, you’re going to sign mine as well. Fair is fair!

Here’s what the morning after a release party looks like. It ain’t pretty. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn. Sorry, just coughed up something nasty. Me and ineffable evil shuffling to the laptop to obsessively read ever digital pixel that might be said about my book today to check the weather, some email, that kind of thing.

Thank you everyone who came out last night. Thank you to those sending along kind messages, and to those who may purchase the book. If you’ll allow me to get a little contemplative navel-gaze-y I admitted to the crowd (yes, crowd, there was a crowd: noun, a large number of people gathered together, typically in a disorganized or unruly way) last night that after my second novel was published and didn’t sell well at all, I allowed myself to sink into a self-pitying writing funk that lasted for longer than I care to admit. I only came out of it because of the support of friends and family. I’m eternally grateful to them all.

So lets end with the text of the acknowledgements pages from the book:

FIRST AND FOREMOST, thanks to Lisa, Cole, Emma, and the rest of my family who love, support, and put up with me. My wife, Lisa, went above and beyond this time around being a beta reader and her input was invaluable. Thanks to my sister Erin and brother-in-law Steve who let me fictionalize their house.

Huge thanks to this novel’s other beta reader, the talented John Mantooth. I think it was Louis Maistros who once said, “Being asked to read another writer’s rough draft is the literary equivalent of being asked to help a friend move a couch to a new place.” He’s so right, and I so appreciate the heavy lifting that John did with this book.

More huge thanks to my agent, Stephen “They’re coming to get you” Barbara, for his friendship, advice, and support. I’m so lucky to have him on my side.

A thousand and one thank-yous to my amazing editor, Jennifer Brehl. She helped make this the best book it could be. I’d never be able to fully explain how much her belief in me and this book means. (Everyone, put down the book and clap for Jen, please.)

Big thanks to Camille Collins, Pamela Jaffe, Ashley Marudas, Andrea Molitor, Kelly O’Connor, Caroline Perny, and everyone at William Morrow for their support, enthusiasm, and hard work. I’m so proud to be working alongside all these great people.

Thank you to two of my best friends and co-conspirators, John Langan and Laird Barron, for listening to me whine, agitate, complain, pontificate, and fret my way through this book, once a week by phone (and too occasionally in person).

10 responses to “June 2: Release day for A Head Full of Ghosts/Brookline Booksmith Fun”

I was going to leave a nice comment here about how I wish I could have been there last night and how happy I am for you and how much I’m looking forward to reading the novel, but then I saw I wasn’t mentioned in that last paragraph of thank-yous, and now I curse you, Paul! I curse you! (I’m still looking forward to reading the novel, though.)

Oh my goodness, I just finished AHFOG and I haz all the feelz. I also have thoughts.Mostly tying your stoey the most (in)famous possession tale. (Yours is better, though)
Have you ever read the article “The Haunted Boy”? I went to Catholic school and, as a result, have a primal fear of possession. “The Exorcist”, or the idea of the story behind it, scares the living daylights out of me. Marjorie reminds me of Robbie/Roland as presented in the article (but I still wonder what reallly happened to her).
Secondly, the dad articles/ending of the novel gave me chills. The actress Mercedes McCambridge voiced Pazuzu in the movie. Her granddaughters and I took dance at the same studio. Her (adopted) son committed triple murder/suicide in the late ’80s (’87, I think; I was in jr. high).
So that’s how my weird brain works. I imagine connections where they don’t really exist. At any rate I really thought AHFOG was amazing, disturbing, creepy and just simply the type of story you don’t want to stop reading. Thank you.

That’s wild (and very sad) about the granddaughters and adopted son of McCambridge. Connections are always weird.

I haven’t read “The Haunted Boy.” I did read an interesting essay about how the supposed true case that The Exorcist was based on wasn’t so true at all. It’s an expensive book, but you might want to seek out Centipede Press’ The Exorcist: Studies in the Horror Film.

That book you mentioned? Includes the article/essay I mentioned, or a version of it. Mark Opsasnick’s “The Haunted Boy”. I originally read it in an online magazine (and kinda want to put on my Nancy Drew hat & recreate his “detective work” in tracking down the real Robbie Doe). I’ll have to skip the book bc it contains photos and I have to admit images from that movie still give me the heebie-jeebies.
Thanks for responding earlier & best wishes!